


Softly Open Our Mouths in the Cold

by ecouterbien



Series: Together Alone [3]
Category: The Drop (2014)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Nadia has had a hard life but I promise this ends well, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, sexy thoughts in a church
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 04:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8475892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecouterbien/pseuds/ecouterbien
Summary: Body of Christ. Amen. She opened her mouth and the priest placed the host on her tongue. She imagined Bob’s fingers pressing into her hips as the wafer stuck to the roof of her mouth, her tongue pressed impatiently against it. Blood of Christ. Amen. She felt heat pool in her stomach as the liquid slipped down her throat, her cheeks flushed at the thought of him slowly undressing her.





	

Nadia had never been to Saint Dom’s before.

She hadn’t set foot inside a church to take Holy Communion in twenty years, she felt her cheeks flush with heat as she made her way down the street towards it. She hesitated when she saw people gathering at the gate, shoulders hunched against the wind as they made their way inside. She preferred churches when they were empty, they felt holier when nobody else was around.

Inside, a handful of parishioners sat scattered among the pews. Though the lights and candles on the altar emitted a warm glow, the air was still cool. Nadia kept her parka on as she crossed herself, and took a seat halfway down the aisle.

The vaulted ceiling arched high above her, amplifying the smallest sounds, the echoes of hushed Hail Marys lingering and overlapping. Nadia closed her eyes, felt the sounds knit a cocoon around her. This was the comfort she’d known; not the words, not the unbending rules, but the way the building spoke to her, made her feel solitary but not alone.

Nadia used to love winter. Back home a blanket of snow would cover the old city in stillness and when it melted everything felt clean and new, as though it had been reborn.

She’d lived with her mother in a small ground floor apartment, her bed under a window facing the street. Her friend Ana would tap on the window, waking Nadia, and they’d giggle as they puckered their lips and kissed each other through the cold glass before Nadia scrambled for the front door to let her in. They’d skitter across the square and through the narrow streets towards _Sfânta Treime_ , its dome looming above the rooftops, and marvelled at its impossibly high ceiling covered in gold and brightly painted saints. In winter they’d draw their initials in the frost on the steps before being bundled inside for mass.

Mama had said they were coming to America for a better life, but Nadia missed the life they’d left behind: the clean clean crisp mountain air and the steep cobbled streets, winters when everything was born again. And then there was Nick Dunne; everyone in the parish loved him, looked up to him, and he'd promised them both the world so Mama married him. After Mama died he’d visited her room every night, and when the teachers and nuns and priests turned her away when she begged them for help she ran away. She was fifteen. She'd heard later that he’d died in a car crash, sometimes things had a way of working themselves out. But the shadow of those years still hung over her life, the winters lost their magic, now they were just cold and grey.

Bob, and whatever was happening between them, had made the colours brighter and cleaner even without the snow; she felt the coldness inside her begin to thaw. _Do you like yourself now?_ She never got a chance to answer the question before waitress had kicked them out of the diner, and he hadn’t asked her again since. _I like myself when I’m with you_. That’s what she would’ve said.

Mass had started and she found herself intonating the prayers and canticles that had lingered in a forgotten recess of her mind. She let her eyes wander and her gaze rested on a statue of Saint Sebastian, arrows piercing his skin delicately like needles, blood tracing a neat course down his torso and thighs.

 _Free us, body and soul, from every danger._ She felt far away from herself. Free me from every danger because I can't do it for myself, no matter how hard I try.

She hadn’t wanted to kill herself when she’d stuck the potato peeler in her neck. How could she tell people that the pain gave her something else to think about when the feelings became too much for her body to contain. _That’s fucked up_ , they’d say. She couldn't work out why Bob had been so understanding, and even after that night at the bar, knowing what she did about him, it was a relief to have someone around who gave her mistakes and vulnerabilities breathing space.

But she didn’t want breathing space now, she wanted him close, pressed against her. Sometimes she wished she were a gun, that Bob would reach for her, slide his hands confidently across her skin. Squeeze her gently, open her thighs.

She shuffled up the aisle to take communion.

 _Body of Christ. Amen._ She opened her mouth and the priest placed the host on her tongue. She imagined Bob’s fingers pressing into her hips as the wafer stuck to the roof of her mouth, her tongue pressed impatiently against it. _Blood of Christ. Amen._ She felt heat pool in her stomach as the liquid slipped down her throat, her cheeks flushed at the thought of him slowly undressing her. 

She glanced again at the statue of Saint Sebastian as she made her way back to her seat, his lips gleaming as though wet with saliva. She thought of Bob’s tongue pushing past her lips, pressing against the roof of her mouth where the wafer still stuck. She knelt on the hassock and closed her eyes as if in prayer.

She stood slowly, half-dazed, wafts of incense curling towards her nostrils. People were standing up and walking out and she realised that the service was over. She avoided the priest’s eyes as she shook his hand and hurried down the steps, grateful that she knew the way to Bob’s house without having to think about it.

Bob was in the kitchen when she arrived, standing over the sink washing his hands. Nadia crossed the room to where he was before she could stop herself, until their bodies were so close they were almost touching. She leaned in closer and ran her thumb across his soft, warm lips. He blinked rapidly and swallowed. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips, cold from being outside, against the sandpapery stubble of his chin before settling them against his. She kissed him until she felt his whole body relax, until she felt warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [Splinter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/pseuds/Splinter) for beta reading this and setting my mind at ease when I thought this was a lost cause.
> 
> Some/most of my headcanons for Nadia's backstory come from [Redecorating](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3707097/chapters/8204771) by [Mals86](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mals86/pseuds/Mals86)
> 
> [Sfânta Treime, Sibiu](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/e3/ab/7fe3abaae13553eb4da4dc3a31fb17e0.jpg), my real-life inspiration for the magical cathedral of Nadia's childhood because it's too beautiful not to share.


End file.
